Chapter One #3
Those thoughts weren’t motivated by greed but by comparing him to her paternal grandparents, who’d taken their son and his motherless newborn baby into their small home and helped raise their grandchild.
On the day her super-rich grandfather presented himself to her like a long-lost unicorn, they’d presented her with a bank statement worth four thousand pounds.
It was money they’d invested over the years in a child-saver bank account for her, money they’d hoped would be useful as she stepped into adulthood.
Her grandfather probably earned that amount—if not more—in interest on an hourly basis.
The months she’d spent with her grandfather in Madrid confirmed her worst fears as to the kind of man he was. If not for the gorgeous Spaniard who’d swept her off her feet, Beth would have flown back to England within days.
The ifs were many. If her grandfather hadn’t decided to invite his business partner, Ferdinand de la Rosa, and Ferdinand’s family to a dinner party to show off his granddaughter on her second night in his home, Beth would never have met Xavi.
If Ferdinand hadn’t been grooming his grandson to take over the running of the Rosbel Group, and Raul determined to teach Beth everything about the business, too, Beth and Xavi wouldn’t have spent so much time together.
By the end of her first week in Madrid, she’d been smitten, and so she’d stayed. By the time autumn morphed into winter, she was back in England with a broken heart and shattered dreams.
‘Do you understand what this means, Beth?’
She blinked herself back to the present and to the man responsible for her broken heart. ‘Yes. It means I have a dog.’
Diego had been her grandfather’s only real redeeming feature. He’d doted on the soppy Spanish Water Dog.
‘It means you and I are now business partners. As you know, my grandfather retired five years ago and put the de la Rosa shares under my control—I’ve since bought my family out, so the shares are mine alone.
When your grandfather retired, he entrusted his shares into my safekeeping and gave me the power to act and vote on his behalf.
His death means those shares are now yours to do with as you wish.
We each own thirty per cent of the company. ’
Beth thought about the glamorous Rosbel Group headquarters in the heart of Madrid’s business district and all the luxury brands under its control and the stonking value of it all. Thought, too, of all her grandfather’s other assets, and shook her head in growing disbelief.
She’d never believed for a second he would leave her any of it.
In the months Beth had spent working for the company, it had been like a war zone between them, ending in a screaming match when Beth had taken one too many long lunches for her grandfather’s liking.
Her grandfather had shouted that if she wasn’t prepared to take the business seriously and learn her way around it and take her rightful place within it, he would leave his shares to the de la Rosas and everything else to charity.
She’d shouted at him to go ahead and then refused to set foot in the headquarters again.
That was another of those ifs. If she hadn’t been head over heels in love with Xavi, she would have flown straight home and probably never seen her grandfather again. Instead, she’d continued living with him, and slowly they’d thawed and forgiven each other.
She hadn’t wanted his money or to be groomed to run an empire and would never have agreed to spend the summer with him if she’d known that had been his end game.
She’d wanted a grandfather, something he’d come to accept, even if he didn’t have a clue how to be a grandfather, but he’d been the last link to her mother, and that had been enough for Beth to learn to forgive the sense that he was hiding something fundamental about himself from her and his many, many flaws.
She thought it had been the same for him, too.
‘If we combine our shares like our grandfathers did, we retain control of the Rosbel Group,’ Xavi said, pulling her out of yet another reverie.
She met his dark brown stare. It seemed impossible that the man who exuded such warmth could be so cold and cruel and so careless with another’s heart. ‘I take it you want me to entrust my shares with you like my grandfather did?’ As if she’d trust him with anything.
‘Whoever has the majority holding has the controlling interest. I’ve already fought off one hostile takeover—an American corporation with a fifteen per cent stake.
I hear its ringleader’s in financial trouble now, but I have no doubt that your grandfather’s death means they or others like them will be on manoeuvres again soon. ’
She downed the last of the whisky. ‘So you do want me to entrust my shares with you.’
‘In a fashion.’ He refilled her glass and filled a glass for himself.
‘What kind of fashion? Do you want to buy them?’ He could want all he liked. Hell would freeze over before she handed him a single share of the business he’d chosen over her.
‘Only if you refuse my proposition.’
‘Which is?’
A hint of caution came into his voice. ‘I want you to promise to hear my reasoning.’
She shrugged. ‘That’s fine.’
He studied her long enough for her skin to prickle and her heart to pound harder. ‘Just hear me out and then take the time to think about it before giving me your answer. Take all the time you need.’
The prickles on her skin were growing, a sense of dread and anticipation uncoiling in her stomach. She took another drink to calm it and nodded. ‘I can do that.’
He leaned back against the cabinet, drank some whisky and said, ‘I want us to marry.’